Sunday, January 30, 2005
Closer (2004)
Scroll down for:
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Finding Neverland
The Aviator
*Warning* The following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film, including the ending.
Director: Mike Nichols
Closer is a mean-spirited, vicious, and ugly love story. Love story? It is as if Mike Nichols has taken the sunny fantasy that is the typical movie love story and turn it inside out, exposing all that is loathsome and sordid in human relationships.
Conversely, the cinematography is stunning and beautiful, and mirrors the claustrophobic boundaries of the plot. It feels as if the camera’s landscape is almost exclusively tight-framed shots of the four character’s faces. In the way Hitchcock would work within sever, self-imposed restricted landscapes (a lifeboat (Lifeboat), a courtyard (Rear Window)) Nichols self-imposed limitation is his casts’ expressions, never venturing far from each face. And it works spectacularly. His cinematic method is mirrored by Julie Roberts’ character, Anna’s, photographic portrait style. Anna creates tight framed, large-scale portraits of faces in various expressions of pain. And in Closer it seems if you stopped the film from rolling each minute you could extract another gorgeous still portrait from the frame to hang along side Anna’s work.
As far as the story, it is a script with boundaries as tight as the cinematography. I cannot think of a line spoken in the film by anyone but the 4 characters involved in these ugly, criss-crossing relationships. It is hard to recall even another human entering a frame of this film. Closer is a nasty, claustrophobic, four-way character study, with each character given equal weight. The four characters, who all meet in various ways and all by chance, betray each other with the others over the course of the film. Jude Law’s Dan ends up the most broken character by the film’s end, having lost both women to Clive Owen’s Larry. Larry, who refers to himself as a simplistic and caveman (both true), comes out on top of the power struggle. Larry is also the most reviled character having destroyed both Anna and Dan by the film’s end with his vicious, vengeful control. Anna is the weakest character, referred to a number of times as a coward. Easily manipulated by Larry, Anna succumbs as Larry possession. She is deeply unhappy, but unable to fight against Larry’s relentless will.
Portman’s Alice is the least damaged by the events in the film, perhaps because of her youth. (Alice is 24 by the end of the film’s 4-year time span.) Alice alone is able to escape. In the final scenes Alice frees herself of all emotional ties to Dan and physically escapes back to New York. The final scene showing Alice walking confidently down Time’s Square is a powerful image of strength, and more importantly personal reinvention. New York, of course, is the symbol of personal freedom, the city to which countless people have fled to forget the past and emerge a self-invented new person. And if there was ever a situation someone would like to scrub herself clean from, it is the grime of this film. The fact that we find out in the next to last scene that she was living a lie in London under a made up name makes her rebirth in New York all the more complete, and the break from this past all the more clean. Conversely, the three characters that did not escape seem all the more trapped and destroyed.
Uniquely, Nichols has no main character, no sympathetic point of view to serve as a lens into the films. Additionally, the most despicable character, Larry, does not meet his dramatic justice, but instead has assumed power over Anna, and has left Dan damaged and alone. Neither devise is extraordinary in itself; however, such devises are more common in crime films, and Closer, if told traditionally, would be romantic comedy (here, a romantic comedy told with the sensibility of Reservoir Dogs). It is as if Nicholas is getting his own vengeance against the typical saccharine, Hollywood love story, showing an amount of sordid darkness equal to the standard amount of romantic sunshine.
At this point I must put Closer to my test for disturbing stories: Is the film’s importance, intelligence, artistry, acting (or some other feature) fine enough to justify the horrid subject matter? For my money the answer is yes, and I have surprised myself by the answer. The most compelling reason to see this film is the artistry. The claustrophobic limitations of the story (the four human characters) and cinemagraphic limitations of landscape (the four human faces), the stark, vulnerable performances, all are stunning and worthy of viewing.
Should you see it? Yes, but with the warning of the ugliness found within its fames.
Story Synopsis:
The film begins sweetly enough with Jude Law’s character and Natalie Portman’s character making eyes at one another as they walk toward each other on the streets of London. Portman, not aware, steps into the street and is hit by a taxi. Law takes her to the hospitable and their relationship begins, by chance. We see them walking together after they leave the hospital talking with that sweet banter of those who have just met and are interested in one another. We learn Law is an obituary writer after a failed attempted at fiction. Portman was a stripper in America and had to leave for some undisclosed reason.
There is a cut and a year has passed. Law and Portman are living together. Law is having a book published based on Portman’s unconventional and amazing young life. While having his photo for the book jacket taken by Julia Roberts’ character, a portrait photographer and photographic artist, Law lets Roberts know he is attracted to her. Roberts turns him down even after they kiss saying she is not a thief, referring to his relationship with Alice, which she has read about in his book. Roberts takes a stunning photograph of Portman when she confronts Roberts that she knows of Law’s advance.
Another cut and 6 months have gone by. Law and Roberts meet again at her photography art opening featuring Portman’s portrait. Law is still actively pursuing Roberts. But she too now has a relationship with Clive Owen’s character. Owen met Roberts (by chance) after chatting on-line with Law who pretends he was a women setting up a sexual encounter. They were to meet at the aquarium. Owen mistakes Roberts for the supposed woman on-line, and they begin a relationship. At the art gallery both Portman and Owen can see there is attraction between Roberts and Law.
Another cut, another year has gone by. Law and Roberts have been cheating together since the art opening, except for a brief moment when Roberts stopped it to marry Owen. But she could not stay away from her relationship with Law. This segment of the film opens with Law and Roberts confronting Owen and Portman to say they are leaving. Both are devastated by the admission of betrayal. Owen, at his most unnerving and loathsome wants to hear all the sexual details of Roberts' affair with Law.
Another cut, 4 months have gone by. Roberts is meeting Law at the opera after having met Owen to sign divorce papers. Law instantly realizes they have had sex, and the details of the encounter are loathsome. Owen, who has been hounding Roberts continually since she left him, promises to never bother her again and give her the divorce if she sleeps with him once more. We suddenly see Owen’s viciousness in full force. He is a wild animal attacking the weak prey that is Roberts, weakened further by her guilt of having cheated on Owen. Further, Owen is using sex as a calculated weapon of vengeance to destroy Law. Owen knows Roberts’ relationship and Law himself will never recover.
In the last cut we jump probably a few weeks. Law is confronting Owen telling him to let Roberts go, that she does not love him. This is true and Owen knows it, but Owen is in full caveman mode and he wants Roberts as a possession, not caring about love. He is also out to destroy Law. And after seemingly taking pity on Law and telling him where to find Portman, he throws the final barb: he has slept with Portman one evening months backs after (by chance) going into a strip club where she was working. He tells Law out of pure hateful vengeance, so he may destroy any chance of Law renewing his relationship with Portman.
It works. Law eventually confronts Portman making her tell him that she did sleep with Owen that night. Portman knows that this ugliness will always be between them and takes flight back to New York, at which point we get the marvelous slow-motion seen of her walking Time’s Square - her beauty and confidence turning heads. Portman will be fine. The rest are stuck in their own filth.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Director: Wes Anderson
* Warning * The following analysis discusses the entire film - including the ending.
The reason this film exists is to delight in watching Bill Murray. Actually, I am sure Wes Anderson would not agree as he has labored to create an entire world in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, inhabited by singular characters interacting in a very busy plot. (Sofia Coppola got it right in Lost in Translation where she placed Murray within a sparse canvas and allowed us to delight in Murray almost distraction free, creating a much better film as a result.) So let me back up and say watching Bill Murray is the primary reason I would give to see The Life Aquatic, and even if it were the only reason, it would be enough.
There is much plot in this film, too much in fact, and very little of any consequence. To summarize, as the film opens Murray’s character, Steve Zissou, is taking questions before an audience who has just watched his latest nature documentary. We soon learn that Zissou has had a storied past of filmmaking and celebrity – sort of a Jacque Cousteau rock star. But for the past decade his popularity and film making ability have been fading, along with his bank account and neglected ship. The rest of the film is the cursed adventure of the making of his next, and perhaps final documentary. The project’s purpose? To find and kill the Jaguar Shark that killed his long time partner. “What scientific purpose would killing the shark serve”, asks a staid biologist from the audience? After much thought Zissou comes back with, in matter-of-fact deadpan, “Revenge”. The moment is hilarious and representative of what’s in store. Which is a black comedy of disaster after disaster made light and hilarious, by Murray’s apathetic, listless deadpan. The move is 1/3 Jaws, 1/3 Fargo, and 1/3 The Big Lubowski (with a dash of absurdist Rambo thrown in during the boat hijacking scene.)
You wonder why Anderson went to all the trouble of creating this fat plot (I have not mentioned Owen Wilson as Zissou’s (possible) abandon son, Cate Blanchette as the disillusioned reporter, or Angelica Houston as the feed-up lover). Why create this singular world, down to such fine details as inventing spectacular aquatic species? What is most worthy in Life Aquatic are throw away moments between the band of quirky characters: William Dafoe and his insane allegiance to Zissou and The Team, Goldblum as Alistair Hennessey, Murray’s arch-rival and foil, sitting on his perfect ship in white robe and flip flops talking with Zissou about how much it will cost to save his ship and crew, the banker stooge telling Goldblum we “fucking stole it” when asked about why they have his espresso machine. The characters are fantastic, unique, and so damn funny. And Anderson has set-up interactions which perfectly exploit their quirkiness.
But in the end Life Aquatic is too adrift in its own insular creativity to speak outside its frame. You laugh uproariously but are not touched; no thoughts are provoked. Is this a failing in an absurd comedy? Yes, but only because it seems Anderson intended more. (It would be ridiculous to level this criticism at purposely shallow (though hilarious) films such as Airplane or the Naked Gun.) But in Life Aquatic it seems the final scenes are intended to be emotionally cathartic for our protagonist, Zissou, - to make us realize Zissou has an empathetic emotional core (triggered by the death of his (possible) son) beyond what his deadpan suggested; however, it didn’t work.
Ultimately it is a film where the characters win (with the possible exception of Wilson’s) and the story fails.
Should you see it? Yes indeed, to delight in Bill Murray.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Finding Neverland (2004)
Director: Marc Forster
* Warning * The following analysis discusses the entire film - including the ending.
Finding Neverland is lovely child’s play. It depicts the creation of the play Peter Pan by its author Sir James Matthew Barrie. The film opens with us watching Barrie’s most recent play, an awful flop. Soon after Barrie meets and befriends a family of 4 boys recently bereaved by the death of their father. The remainder of the film depicts how the relationship Barrie forms with this family becomes the inspiration for his next and greatest play, Peter Pan.
Barrie tries to bring the gaiety of imagination to this family, especially to Peter, the boy most grieved. As Barrie plays with the boys, inventing game after game of imaginative adventure we are privileged with the wonder of Barrie’s private Neverland. Neverland (a place where dogs are bears, pirates and Indians roam, and believing in something makes it so) is a private imaginative space Barrie has been creating for years, perhaps since his own boyhood; or perhaps it is the imagination of his boyhood never lost, while the rest of us adults have. And this is Barrie’s blessing and curse. Like Peter Pan, he is an adult never having completely left childhood - lost in adult society. But the magic Barrie invents for these children by sharing Neverland nourishes the boys and their mother back from their despair.
The genius of this film, like the genius of Peter Pan, is the audience’s uncertainty and wonderment about whether this is a kids’ story or one written for adults. And of course Barrie’s answer would be – there need not be a difference.
It is difficult to write about this gem of a film without it sounding completely saccharine. But the director succeeds by coaxing outstanding performances, and employing his magical visual expressiveness (showing the world Barrie and the children have imagined) with subtly and at the perfect times. Where other storytellers would have produce sentimental slop, every pang of grief, or expression of care or childish wonder in Finding Neverland rings genuine.
Which is not say there are not many emotionally charged, tearful moments - there are. Scenes, such as Barrie telling the youngest boy he must believe the kite will fly before it will, when he tells the oldest boy he has suddenly grown-up in the instant just past before his eyes (when George wants to know the truth about his mother’s illness), and the lines in Peter Pan explaining how the first laugh from the first baby broke into 1000 pieces, each one becoming a fairy, all cause tears to well. Like I said, it sounds like absolute emotional swill. And probably in the hands of a different director and without Johnny Depp’s performance it would have been. But for my money the emotional tenor remains genuine throughout. (The exception being the film’s dénouement after the boys’ mother dies of tuberculosis, in which Depp and Julie Christy make nice to raise the boys together. This is the one moment which felt like a Hollywood tack-on.)
Johnny Depp has chosen another perfect role for himself (or is it he performed perfectly another role?). He is quietly one of the smartest actors on screen today. Dustin Hoffman seems to be enjoying himself immensely playing Charles Frohman the American financial backer to Depp’s Barrie. And it is very fun to see Julie Christy as Mrs. Emma du Maurier, the authoritarian, proper Victorian grandma.
Should you see it? If you need your heart warmed Finding Neverland will leave you toasty.
* Warning * The following analysis discusses the entire film - including the ending.
Finding Neverland is lovely child’s play. It depicts the creation of the play Peter Pan by its author Sir James Matthew Barrie. The film opens with us watching Barrie’s most recent play, an awful flop. Soon after Barrie meets and befriends a family of 4 boys recently bereaved by the death of their father. The remainder of the film depicts how the relationship Barrie forms with this family becomes the inspiration for his next and greatest play, Peter Pan.
Barrie tries to bring the gaiety of imagination to this family, especially to Peter, the boy most grieved. As Barrie plays with the boys, inventing game after game of imaginative adventure we are privileged with the wonder of Barrie’s private Neverland. Neverland (a place where dogs are bears, pirates and Indians roam, and believing in something makes it so) is a private imaginative space Barrie has been creating for years, perhaps since his own boyhood; or perhaps it is the imagination of his boyhood never lost, while the rest of us adults have. And this is Barrie’s blessing and curse. Like Peter Pan, he is an adult never having completely left childhood - lost in adult society. But the magic Barrie invents for these children by sharing Neverland nourishes the boys and their mother back from their despair.
The genius of this film, like the genius of Peter Pan, is the audience’s uncertainty and wonderment about whether this is a kids’ story or one written for adults. And of course Barrie’s answer would be – there need not be a difference.
It is difficult to write about this gem of a film without it sounding completely saccharine. But the director succeeds by coaxing outstanding performances, and employing his magical visual expressiveness (showing the world Barrie and the children have imagined) with subtly and at the perfect times. Where other storytellers would have produce sentimental slop, every pang of grief, or expression of care or childish wonder in Finding Neverland rings genuine.
Which is not say there are not many emotionally charged, tearful moments - there are. Scenes, such as Barrie telling the youngest boy he must believe the kite will fly before it will, when he tells the oldest boy he has suddenly grown-up in the instant just past before his eyes (when George wants to know the truth about his mother’s illness), and the lines in Peter Pan explaining how the first laugh from the first baby broke into 1000 pieces, each one becoming a fairy, all cause tears to well. Like I said, it sounds like absolute emotional swill. And probably in the hands of a different director and without Johnny Depp’s performance it would have been. But for my money the emotional tenor remains genuine throughout. (The exception being the film’s dénouement after the boys’ mother dies of tuberculosis, in which Depp and Julie Christy make nice to raise the boys together. This is the one moment which felt like a Hollywood tack-on.)
Johnny Depp has chosen another perfect role for himself (or is it he performed perfectly another role?). He is quietly one of the smartest actors on screen today. Dustin Hoffman seems to be enjoying himself immensely playing Charles Frohman the American financial backer to Depp’s Barrie. And it is very fun to see Julie Christy as Mrs. Emma du Maurier, the authoritarian, proper Victorian grandma.
Should you see it? If you need your heart warmed Finding Neverland will leave you toasty.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
The Aviator (2004)
Director: Martin Scorsese
* Warning * The following analysis discusses the entire film - including the ending.
The good news is Martin Scorsese’s 3 hour film is visually spectacular and completely engrossing from start (almost) to finish. Unfortunately, like any other big Hollywood adventure, the film is ultimately unsatisfying, superficial, and in this particular case, oddly incomplete. If you are satisfied with a biopic that gives broad brush strokes of character, focusing much more on actions than motivations, it is quite possible to love this film. It is more a bio-adventure racing along briskly, jumping from one astonishing accomplishment to another, then from one disaster to another, then back to triumphant sullied by the tragedy of Howard Hughes’s incurable insanity. Famous names are thrown around as supporting characters, most prominently Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn, (a performance I loved despite mixed-reviews). But even here Scorsese is relying, I suppose, on us bringing our own biographic knowledge to flesh out Hepburn (and Ava Gardner), as there is little depth in the on screen portrayals.
Ultimately this is what disappoints – Scorsese's decision to make this much more an adventure story than a character study. We are shown, engrossingly I must admit, Hughes’s brash confidence as he makes the most expensive movie ever made (and than just as it is finished extremely late and extremely over-budget, he insists on shooting the whole film again because talking movies have made a big splash while Hell’s Angels was being created), builds and flies the fastest plane ever made, builds and flies the largest plane ever assembled, crashes and burns (literally) during a spy plane test flight, and recovers to establish TWA airlines and take on the far larger, dominant (and government connected) airline of his day (Pan-America).
(Side Note: Alan Alda as the corrupt Maine senator in Pan-Am’s pocket steals the show as far as I am concerned.)
But what disappoints is precisely Scorsese’s decision to make an action driven story rather than a character driven story. And it disappoints immensely, not because Scorsese botches the adventure (he doesn’t, it’s totally engrossing), but because he passes on the chance to flesh- out these amazing characters (Hughes, Hepburn, Gardner) and gives us instead fleshless figures. Icons, not people. The film disappoints because you have wonderful periphery actors (such as those playing Hughes’ money man, and engineer) and they have little acting to do. And what disappoints most terribly is the fact that Scorsese is a master of depicting and humanizing complex characters. It is difficult not to feel completely cheated when the director who brought us Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull has a character like Hughes with as much internal terrain to explore, and instead of treating Hughes like LaMotta, Scorsese treats Hughes like Indiana Jones. And here in lies the tragedy of The Aviator.
The story synopsis: Ater a brief tableau of Hughes from childhood, the story depicts Hughes’s life beginning in 1928 as he is audaciously filming a WWI epic called Hell’s Angels. The film is colossal, over budget, and years in the making. But the film, as Hughes’s other projects, is eventually finished and lauded by the world. He is similarly audacious and successful building airplanes, airlines, and taking on Senators. Tragedy strikes when he crashes and almost dies during a spy plane test run. The further tragedy of his mental illness hits hard after his crash recovery, and he spends weeks locked up in a windowless room by himself and completely out of his mind. Hughes must summon the will to return to public life when he is subpoenaed by a senator for war profiteering. He is victorious in his fight against the senator and returns to building aircraft, getting the Spruce Goose off the ground in the film’s climax. This climatic triumphant is short lived, however, as Hughes’s mental illness impinges on his victory. We are left with the reality that Hughes will continue to have this roller coaster of a life, with sever dips related to his mental state and world-renowned highs for his immense accomplishments.
Should you see it? Go with the expectations you normally bring to an action movie and you will love it. Go with the expectations you bring to a Scorsese biopic and it will disappoint.
* Warning * The following analysis discusses the entire film - including the ending.
The good news is Martin Scorsese’s 3 hour film is visually spectacular and completely engrossing from start (almost) to finish. Unfortunately, like any other big Hollywood adventure, the film is ultimately unsatisfying, superficial, and in this particular case, oddly incomplete. If you are satisfied with a biopic that gives broad brush strokes of character, focusing much more on actions than motivations, it is quite possible to love this film. It is more a bio-adventure racing along briskly, jumping from one astonishing accomplishment to another, then from one disaster to another, then back to triumphant sullied by the tragedy of Howard Hughes’s incurable insanity. Famous names are thrown around as supporting characters, most prominently Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn, (a performance I loved despite mixed-reviews). But even here Scorsese is relying, I suppose, on us bringing our own biographic knowledge to flesh out Hepburn (and Ava Gardner), as there is little depth in the on screen portrayals.
Ultimately this is what disappoints – Scorsese's decision to make this much more an adventure story than a character study. We are shown, engrossingly I must admit, Hughes’s brash confidence as he makes the most expensive movie ever made (and than just as it is finished extremely late and extremely over-budget, he insists on shooting the whole film again because talking movies have made a big splash while Hell’s Angels was being created), builds and flies the fastest plane ever made, builds and flies the largest plane ever assembled, crashes and burns (literally) during a spy plane test flight, and recovers to establish TWA airlines and take on the far larger, dominant (and government connected) airline of his day (Pan-America).
(Side Note: Alan Alda as the corrupt Maine senator in Pan-Am’s pocket steals the show as far as I am concerned.)
But what disappoints is precisely Scorsese’s decision to make an action driven story rather than a character driven story. And it disappoints immensely, not because Scorsese botches the adventure (he doesn’t, it’s totally engrossing), but because he passes on the chance to flesh- out these amazing characters (Hughes, Hepburn, Gardner) and gives us instead fleshless figures. Icons, not people. The film disappoints because you have wonderful periphery actors (such as those playing Hughes’ money man, and engineer) and they have little acting to do. And what disappoints most terribly is the fact that Scorsese is a master of depicting and humanizing complex characters. It is difficult not to feel completely cheated when the director who brought us Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull has a character like Hughes with as much internal terrain to explore, and instead of treating Hughes like LaMotta, Scorsese treats Hughes like Indiana Jones. And here in lies the tragedy of The Aviator.
The story synopsis: Ater a brief tableau of Hughes from childhood, the story depicts Hughes’s life beginning in 1928 as he is audaciously filming a WWI epic called Hell’s Angels. The film is colossal, over budget, and years in the making. But the film, as Hughes’s other projects, is eventually finished and lauded by the world. He is similarly audacious and successful building airplanes, airlines, and taking on Senators. Tragedy strikes when he crashes and almost dies during a spy plane test run. The further tragedy of his mental illness hits hard after his crash recovery, and he spends weeks locked up in a windowless room by himself and completely out of his mind. Hughes must summon the will to return to public life when he is subpoenaed by a senator for war profiteering. He is victorious in his fight against the senator and returns to building aircraft, getting the Spruce Goose off the ground in the film’s climax. This climatic triumphant is short lived, however, as Hughes’s mental illness impinges on his victory. We are left with the reality that Hughes will continue to have this roller coaster of a life, with sever dips related to his mental state and world-renowned highs for his immense accomplishments.
Should you see it? Go with the expectations you normally bring to an action movie and you will love it. Go with the expectations you bring to a Scorsese biopic and it will disappoint.
